The tissue paper had the tagline “XL Tissues for Parking Issues” with a website that led to Chope-King.com. When someone visits the web address, a video by Uber will be shown.

Here’s the video:

Unlocking cities

Uber wants to ‘unlock cities’ by promoting the use of ridesharing services.

According to a study, Singaporean drivers spends on average “288 hours a year in traffic and looking for parking,” resulting in inefficiencies and opportunity costs of almost US$5,000 per driver.

The company also highlighted the true cost of car ownership in Singapore where over 675,000 vehicles are cramped up on the tiny island, most of which are under-utilised during peak hours – 3 out of 5 cars have just one person in them to be exact.

The study also showed that “61% of Singaporeans believe that ridesharing services like Uber can substitute owning a car”.

No more space in Singapore for cars

The Land Transport Authority (LTA) announced last Monday (Oct 23) that “Singapore’s vehicle growth rate will be cut to zero, down from the current 0.25 percent, for all private passenger cars.” The change will take effect from February 2018.

According to the LTA,, 12% of Singapore’s total land area is taken up by roads. With the limited space, there can only be so many vehicles on the road at any point in time.

“In view of land constraints and competing needs, there is limited scope for further expansion of the road network.”

– Land Transport Authority

In a nutshell, car ownership in Singapore is expensive and a bane to efficiency. The Government has stepped up investments – up to S$28 billion – in rail infrastructure and bus contracting subsidies over the next five years to steer Singapore towards becoming a car-lite society.

Perhaps ridesharing services like Uber can definitely save us from…carmageddon.